


Sometimes We Can't Speak

by lady_mab



Category: Gatchaman Crowds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 15:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hajime comes back different after she speaks to Katze. Sugane notices it immediately.</p><p>He can't say anything because it is a part of the Things They Do Not Talk About. He can't find the right words anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes We Can't Speak

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who just watched the Director's Cut of the last episode and CRIED. This was requested by an anon on my tumblr ages ago, so it doesn't actually adhere to the new ending, just the original.

There’s a lot of things they don’t talk about after everything has finished. 

They don’t talk about O.D. and the space he’s left. 

They don’t talk about what’s going to happen to them now that old fashioned heroes aren’t needed. 

They don’t talk about where Hajime disappeared to after the CROWDS were taken care of. 

And they most certainly do not talk about the way Hajime changed when she returned. 

Sugane notices it immediately. The way she holds herself is different. There's a heavy hunch to her shoulders, a pinch to her brow, what was never there before. She returned, locked herself away in her room, and only reemerged once the brilliant smile was fully intact. 

It doesn't change the fact that it cracks around the edges. It stretches too tight and is plastered too thickly with tacky glue. It breaks easily under the slightest pressure. 

Moments come and go when Hajime will just stop what she is doing. The first time he saw this happen, Sugane asked what was wrong. 

She didn’t respond. She tilted her head to the side, listening to something that wasn’t there, and an ugly expression he’d never seen before flitted across the muscles of her face. 

He had called her name again, and the cloud passed and she turned that brilliant, fake, broken smile in his direction. 

Later, much later, after she started school again, moments would come where she would break down completely. 

This usually happens late at night, when Utsutsu (who has moved in until they finally decided to Talk About Things) and Paiman are asleep. Her voice will carry in the silence. Soft, lilting lines of dialogue that crack as sharply as her smile. She will ask questions, and there will be answers that he can't hear as he lies awake staring at the dark ceiling over his head and wishing that somehow, if only he can be brave enough, the wall between them would break. 

But these are all things classified under the Things They Did Not Talk About. And so the wall stays firmly in place. 

It is the end of Golden Week when Sugane stumbles out of his room at somewhere close to 3 AM with the sole thought of a glass of water motivating his wobbly steps. 

He find Hajime standing on the porch, her hair loose and dancing in the slight breeze. He can't see her face from where he stands. That is a good thing, he decides. He doesn't want to know what her expression looks like. 

He attempts to complete the path to the kitchen on silent, socked tip-toes, but her head turns anyway. Not far enough to relieve the shadows clinging to her, but enough that he knows she heard him. 

"Senpai. Come stand with me." 

Sugane obeyes without hesitation, although his brain protests the entire way there. “You’ll catch a cold out here.” 

She snuggles against his side in response and his arm hooks around her bare shoulders to hold her closer. “Only an idiot catches a cold in summer!” This is said with a light giggle that's familiar and makes his gut twist in a strange way. 

"Don’t let yourself be that one idiot, then." 

Hajime hums and wiggles closer. “You’d nurse me back to health wouldn’t you, Senpai?” 

He pretends to consider this when he actually too busy thinking that it has been far too long since they’ve talked like this, stood this close, since they pretended like everything is okay instead of their usual, obvious side-stepping. “Only because it would be my responsibility for not keeping you warm.” 

She ducks her head as she laughs, turning in to his chest. Then she pivots, arms twining around his waist and he still doesn't get a clear look of her face. “My chest feels so heavy. And—and sometimes I know I don’t act like myself.” 

Her voice trails off as he touches the back of her neck with the tips of his fingers. 

"A lot has happened," he says, slowly, carefully. "But I will wait for you to tell me about it. So until then, keep relying on me when you need to, okay?" 

When she finally tilts her head back and he can get a clear look at her face, he's relieved to see that her eyes are bright and filled with her characteristic determination. 

But she doesn't say anything. She wraps her fingers around the back of his head and pulls herself up to kiss him. 

It has been way too long since they last kissed, and he had almost managed to convince himself that it was okay until that moment. Then he realizes how much he missed it, missed her, missed the way he could curl his fingers in her hair and the way her entire body curls up against his. 

She pulls herself all the way up on her tiptoes and kisses him with such force that she stumbles forward and he retreats to compensate — step after step until he is flush against the cool glass of the sliding door. 

He breathes her in, her mouth open against his, his tongue filled with her taste — with cold stars and old ink spilled over paper and a ferocity he doesn’t remember. 

And then she pulls back. The air shivers between them, caught in the whirlwind of their heaving breath. 

"I’m scared," she whispers against his lips. He wants to kiss her again, to take some of her fear and doubt onto his own shoulders. "Don’t forget the real me, Senpai. And don’t let me forget either." 

He can't say anything because it is a part of the Things They Do Not Talk About. He can't find the right words anyway. Instead he licks his lips and nods, and he takes her hand and leads her back into the apartment. 

He abandons his quest for water. Her hand stays joined with his as they go back to his room. She falls asleep against him, and he stays wide awake as he traces patterns against her ice-cold arm and warms her skin with the promises he can't speak.


End file.
